In today’s postmodern culture the meaning and image of true masculinity is seriously getting diluted, tainted, watered-down and completely lost. Unfortunately the narrative that’s being played out today is ‘boys in men’s bodies’ with only a few wanting to be men…but not exactly knowing how, while others remain nonchalant. 
 
Wanted to share a collection of quotes that are some of my personal favorites to help you to kick your masculinity into gear! 

“You have to be a man before you can be a gentleman.” –John Wayne (McLintock!) 
 
“A man is not merely a man but a man among men, in a world of men. Being good at being a man has more to do with a man’s ability to succeed with men and within groups of men than it does with a man’s relationship to any woman or any group of women. When someone tells a man to be a man, they are telling him to be more like other men, more like the majority of men, and ideally more like the men who other men hold in high regard.” -Jack Donovan 
 
“I learned that he that will be a hero will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work is sure of his manhood.” –George MacDonald 
 
“Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.” –Norman Mailer 
 
“We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life.” –Theodore Roosevelt 
 
“A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.” –WInston Churchill 
 
“No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.” –Seneca 
 
“First find the man in yourself if you will inspire manliness in others.” –Amos Bronson Alcott 
 
“A man’s ledger does not tell what he is, or what he is worth. Count what is in man, not what is on him, if you would know what he is worth—whether rich or poor.” –Henry Ward Beecher 
 
“A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.” –Marcus Aurelius 
 
“Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor.” –Norman Mailer 
 
“Private and public life are subject to the same rules—truth and manliness are two qualities that will carry you through this world much better than policy or tact of expediency or other words that were devised to conceal a deviation from a straight line.” –Robert E. Lee 
 
“Without an adversary, virtus shrivels. We see how great and how viable virtus is when, by endurance, it shows what it is capable of.” –Seneca 
 
“The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.: –Thomas Carlyle 
 
“A woman simply is, but a man must become. Masculinity is risky and elusive. It is achieved by a revolt from woman, and it confirmed only by other men. Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all.” –Camille Paglia 
 
“We don’t need to reinvent manliness. We only need to will ourselves to wake up from the bad dream of the last few generations and reclaim it, in order to extend and enrich that tradition under the formidable demands of the present.” –Waller R. Newell 
 
“An acorn is not an oak tree when it is sprouted. It must go through long summers and fierce winters, and endure all that frost, and snow, and thunder, and storms, and side-striking winds can bring, before it is a full grown oak. So a man is not a man when he is created; he is only begun. His manhood must come with years. He who goes through life prosperous, and comes to his grave without a wrinkle, is not half a man. Difficulties are God’s errands and trainers, and only through them can one come to fullness of manhood.” –Henry Ward Beecher 
 
“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” –Marcus Aurelius 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLoxLkV3sSM 
 
“Civilization comes at a cost of manliness. It comes at a cost of wildness, of risk, of strife. It comes at a cost of strength, of courage, of mastery. It comes at a cost of honor. Increased civilization exacts a toll of virility, forcing manliness into further redoubts of vicariousness and abstraction.” –Jack Donovan 
 
“If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, ‘I awake to do the work of a man.’” –Marcus Aurelius 
 
“No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.” –Abraham Lincoln 
 
“Manhood is the defeat of childhood narcissism.” –David Gilmore 
 
“The lesson taught at this point by human experience is simply this, that the man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down. This rule may appear somewhat harsh, but in its general application and operation it is wise, just and beneficent. I know of no other rule which can be substituted for it without bringing social chaos. Personal independence is a virtue and it is the soul out of which comes the sturdiest manhood. But there can be no independence without a large share of self-dependence, and this virtue cannot be bestowed. It must be developed from within.” -Frederick Douglass 
 
“I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” –George Washington 
 
“Strength, Courage, Mastery, and Honor are the alpha virtues of men all over the world. They are the fundamental virtues of men because without them, no ‘higher’ virtues can be entertained. You need to be alive to philosophize. You can add to these virtues and you can create rules and moral codes to govern them, but if you remove them from the equation altogether you aren’t just leaving behind the virtues that are specific to men, you are abandoning the virtues that make civilization possible.” –Jack Donovan 
 
“Manliness means perfect manhood, as womanliness implies perfect womanhood. Manliness is the character of a man as he ought to be, as he was meant to be.” –James Freeman Clarke 
 
“A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter his job.” –John Wayne 
 
“Show me the man you honour, and I will know what kind of man you are, for it shows me what your ideal of manhood is, and what kind of man you long to be” –Thomas Carlyle 
 
“A man is one whose body has been trained to be the ready servant of his mind; whose passions are trained to be the servants of his will; who enjoys the beautiful, loves truth, hates wrong, loves to do good, and respects others as himself.” –John Ruskin 
 
“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine!” —The Count of Monte Cristo 
 
“Men cannot be men—much less good or heroic men—unless their actions have meaningful consequences to people they truly care about. Strength requires an opposing force, courage requires risk, mastery requires hard work, honor requires accountability to other men. Without these things, we are little more than boys playing at being men, and there is no weekend retreat or mantra or half-assed rite of passage that can change that. A rite of passage must reflect a real change in status and responsibility for it to be anything more than theater. No reimagined manhood of convenience can hold its head high so long as the earth remains the tomb of our ancestors.” –Jack Donovan 
 
“Duty is the essence of manhood.” –General George S. Patton 
 
“There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet.” –Robert Jordan 
 
“To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.” –Antoine de Saint-Exupery 
 
“Stand true to your calling to be a man. Real women will always be relieved and grateful when men are willing to be men.” –Elisabeth Elliott 
 
“Adversity toughens manhood, and the characteristic of the good or the great man is not that he has been exempt from the evils of life, but that he has surmounted them.” –Patrick Henry 
 
“The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.” –John Walter Wayland

Winston Churchill cuts right to the chase — every man has a task for which he is uniquely suited. The battle cry is this: Get off your lazy butts, surround yourself with a brotherhood, press into God, run with courage to the front lines and get in the fight men! Men, we were not created to just survive, we were created to live courageously from our hearts!

Look we are never out of the fight, so man up! God wants you to lead your families and finish strong. God wants you to be prepared and to shine when presented with your finest hour.